Gaming & Culture —

Sony goes to court to get PS3 key crackers to shut up already

Sony is hoping to stuff the genie back into the bottle as it seeks a …

The PlayStation 3 is currently the Wild West. The system's master key has been published online, custom firmware allowing the use of pirated games and custom software is easy to find, and Sony is not at all pleased with this turn of events. The company is asking the courts for a temporary restraining order to get the infringing keys and software offline, and is targeting George Hotz, the FAIL0VERFLOW group, and 100 unnamed John or Jane Does.

No money is being asked for; Sony just wants everyone to stop telling the world how to hack its system.

The court documents lay out the case simply. "The FAIL0VERFLOW Defendants intentionally circumvented SCEA's [security], accessed the PS3 System and trafficked in Circumvention Devices and SCEA's proprietary information, with full knowledge that their unlawful conduct would irreparably harm SCEA," Sony alleges. "Indeed, five days prior to appearing at the Chaos Conference, Bushing echoed a fellow hacker's comment anticipating this irreparable harm: 'Last chance to sell any Sony stock you may have.'"

Sony isn't looking for money in this filing, simply injunctive relief. This temporary restraining order's only job is to get the information off the Web, right now (good luck with that). "The lack of injunctive relief will... result in the loss of goodwill to licensees, encourage infringers to increase operations, and discourage anti-piracy enforcement which is great and irreparable harm," Sony states. [Update: another complaint shows Sony is asking for compensatory damages and attorney's fees, not to mention forfeiture of the equipment and programs used to crack the PS3]

The consumer electronics giant is using a clause in the user agreement to justify suing a Hungarian and a Spaniard in the great state of California. That clause says that if you download even a single update from the PlayStation Network, you have given your consent to be sued in California.

The hacking work was bad enough, but George Hotz, the man behind the iPhone jailbreak, took things many steps further, according to the lawsuit. "Building on the FAIL0VERFLOW Defendants’ Circumvention Devices, Hotz circumvented certain other TPMs in the PS3 System, intentionally accessed the PS3 System without authorization, and misappropriated critical SCEA Keys," Sony claims.

These digital signatures opened the PlayStation 3 completely, as they can be used to sign any piece of software so the PlayStation 3 believes it's legitimate code. Hacked firmware arrived on the Internet in short order, allowing anyone to run any form of software or pirated game on their PlayStation 3. The system, which was always considered highly secure, has been compromised in the deepest way.

The reason for this increased interest in the PlayStation 3? Sony's removal of the Other OS feature from all PlayStation 3s, taking away a feature that was heavily promoted during the hardware's launch. "It became a valid target," pytey, a member of the FAIL0VERFLOW group, told BBC News. "That was the motivation for us to hack it... It was not trivial to do this."

Sony also claims Hotz extorted the company, saying that he asked for employment and said that he could make its consoles more secure.

In a nutshell, Sony simply wants everyone to cut it out and stop sharing these exploits on the Internet. That problem is that the keys are already widely available, the custom firmware is easily obtained, and the methods used to gain the key needed to create the firmware are known to a large group of people. The damage has been done.

As of this writing, cracking the PlayStation 3 is a trivial thing. You download the custom firmware, update your system, and you then have access to everything in a matter of minutes. You can run pirated games, install other operating systems, or simply muck about and do some coding. It's all available to you, and Sony has lost control over what you do with your system. This suit may silence the groups that originally opened the door to an open and compromised PlayStation 3, but it won't close it again.